Custom Equalizer affects volume

Hi,

When I go to the custom equalizer settings and when I shift one of the settings up or down the volume is lowered. This is the same for each band. When all the bands are in 0 position the volume is the same as normal. I tested also the presettings and I must say that it is very disappointing what I hear. The normal equalizer position is the best option and it has more or less always lousness active when I look at the spectrum volume display. The bands themself are not very helpfull to adjust the music genre.

I hope Sansa will facelift this function. I have an Zen Nano 512 MB that does it better, even the amplifiers produces a more warm sound than the Sansa in neutral settings.

You are correct.  The Clip & Clip+ equalize by reducing volumes rather than boosting volumes.  I agree the equalizer and preset EQ’s are horrible.  I knew about this though before I bought the player because I read the player reviews on Anything But iPod.com.  I’ve had a several players and never have liked preset EQ’s in general.  IMO if you get yourself a fairly decent pair of headphones, IEM’s or such (and by ‘fairly decent’ you will need to spend around $100) I think you will find the sound quality to be quite good in the flat eq position. 

The spectrum volume display is only useful as a visualization.

@simplemind wrote:

 

When I go to the custom equalizer settings and when I shift one of the settings up or down the volume is lowered. This is the same for each band. When all the bands are in 0 position the volume is the same as normal. 

 

 For what its worth, and not commenting on how good the EQ itself is, lowering the volume is how a digital EQ is supposed to work.  You do not want to raise it, since hopefully the signal is already at maximum digital volume going into the EQ (using less the maximum would reduce SNR).  So instead to boost one frequency, you lower all the others. 

Some EQs will let you boost the volume too, but this often introduces distortion and noise. 

You’re reminding me of the cool unity gain lights on the old Souncraftsmen EQs.  Now that was good stuff.  The digital EQ does behave quite differently.  I wish there were two improvements: when selecting Jazz, for example, I’d love to see the sliders.

Heck, while we’re at it, two user preset memories would be wonderful, or the ability to tweak the preset ones.  All you’d need do is display the default positions as wee “tick marks” on the sliders.

Bob  :wink: